The Gilda Stories

Gilda has moved to New York City, where she is working as a stage manager with an Off-Broadway theater company and has begun to write songs in her spare time. A fellow theater employee, a young man named Julius, is enamored with her. After a rehearsal, the two visit a café and compare notes on their lives; Julius has been involved with the Black Power movement but is not sure how to live its values fully.

Restless, Gilda briefly repairs to the vampire bar that Sorel and Anthony have opened in the city. Gilda and Anthony discuss Eleanor’s recent true death, which she chose to keep from destroying Samuel, over whom she ultimately felt guilty. On her way back from the bar, Gilda visits Julius’s apartment while he sleeps. He is dreaming of her, and she takes his blood while allowing him to fully experience the fantasy in his dreams.

The theater company’s play has a successful opening, but Julius is troubled at the cast party. He tells Gilda he had a dream about her making love to him (the dream he doesn’t know she gave him when she took his blood) and that he felt empty afterward knowing it wasn’t real and asks that they at least stay connected as friends.